physics

I thought that if I could just get hold of a really small and sharp pair of scissors, I could cut up a piece of paper over and over, eventually finding out whether matter was infinitely divisible or made of atoms (my father claimed the latter was true, and at the time I thought this was really suspicious).

LP

I don't think i'm the only one with this belief. I thought if u spun around in one direction long enough to get dizzy (e.g clockwise, or anti- cloc) Then if u turned back the same amount the other way you could kind of un-dizzy yourself. I'm not i scientist do it still makes a small bit of sense to me , i'm 17.

I used to believe that each people has their own perception of color, for example: I see color red as red, but when I was a kid I used to think that others may perceive different. I see red but they see other color, and we describe the same color because we are used to it since birth.

When I was in grade school (I schooled in Canada), I held the belief that during Winter the world was cold because the world was covered in snow. As you could see manhole covers and vents that had melted snow around it, they were direct links to underground, my premise was that heat actually came through the center of the earth (remember those nifty schoolbooks with the picture of the core of molten hot metal) and snow was actually blocking the heat coming into the air. This was also confirmed by it not being cold in the house, as the floor of the house didn't have any snow on it.

Mathew

our father would tell us that the wind shield wipers on his early '80s vw rabbit were in fact turbo wipers, serving the purpose of wiping air out of the way so the car could travel faster. that explanation paired with well timed hits on the accelerator made the notion quite believable to my brother and i.

cj2

I must have been told in a lesson or something that the world spun, because after that I couldn't understand the concept properly and came to the conclusion that when we walked we were just lifting our feet up and down in the same place but that the world moved underneath us!!

Claire

I used to believe that because of the damage it does, UV light' was 'ultra violent light' not 'ultra violet'.

Jane

I used to believe that if I threw a paper airplane hard enough, and held on tight enough, that I could fly with it. It only took one failed attempt to realize I couldnt

Ben

As a bit of backstory, my Dad, as a child, skipped Kindergarten. Until around 46, my dad thought that the primary colors were just a myth, and you could mix something like green and orange to get red. We still tease him about this.

When I was about 6 years old, I believed that the world consist of bacond, sour cream and juice. Pretty wierd huh.

Arthur III

top belief!

When I was a child I asked my Dad how the tides worked and why the sea came in and out. He took a long time explaining to me about gravitational forces and the pull of the moon. When he was done, I simply stared at him and said "yeah right dad, pull the other one". I refused to believe this elaborate hoax.

Kerry

top belief!

My mother told me that ceiling fans where used to hold up the ceiling. Being a somewhat smart kid at five years old I knew how propellers worked so this seemed possible to me. (but what happens if someone turns them off by accident?)

planetnewbs

I used to believe that the boiling water was air passing through the bottom of the pot wich was dilated because of the heat

PonC

top belief!

I used to believe that if you could figure out how to suspend yourself in the air (my best plan was a balloon) you would remain stationary and the Earth would rotate below you. Using this method, I planned to travel around the world in just one day.

My brother crushed my dreams by telling me I would never get high enough to clear mountains and I would die when I crashed into them.

Bill

top belief!

When I first learned how a helicopter's rotor gives the helicopter lift that raises it off the ground and keeps it suspended in the air, I decided that in buildings that had ceiling fans, the fans were part of what was holding the ceiling up, on a similar principle.

Dan

top belief!

My brother convinced me that the world spinned around on its axis because it was at a very perfect angle that scientists couldn't easily reproduce. He told me that if I took out the school globe and adjusted it juuuuuust right that it would start spinning! I spent hours trying to get it to spin.

Nadia

when i was little i always wondered why hot food would get cold if you left it out too long, and cold food would get hot. when i was about 12 i realized it was food turning to room temperature.

Flow

People said that the earth spinned but I never felt this "spin". I then swiftly came to the conclusion that the only way to feel the earth move was to spin around in circles and that your dizzyness was actually the enlightenment of feeling the earth move.

i used to think that the earth spun so fast you couldnt feel it (and it also kept us down with gravity) and if you got headaches it was because you were starting to feel it a little. and i also thought that we were inside a globe, like a snowglobe.

sarah

I used to believe that batteries in an appliance (like my old sony walkman) would 'spin' when the item was used.I spent many hours quickly opening the battery compartment trying to see the batteries turning, but obviously didnt succeed!!